Vitezslava Kapralova (b. 1915 in Brno - d. 1940 Montpellier) is generally considered an important representative of inter-war Czech music.
Regarded once as one of the most promising composers of her generation, her memory was almost obliterated
by the end of the twentieth century before it began to infiltrate our awareness again in the twenty-first.
Today, there is no doubt that Kapralova's music has withstood the test of time with admirable ease, proving its relevance for new generations of musicians and music
listeners.
Kapralova's legacy should not be considered only a mere torso of "what could have been," for her catalog includes about fifty compositions
in all genres: piano, chamber, orchestral, and vocal music.

The cultured environment of Kapralova's family and its circle of friends who included some of the finest musicians and scholars of the new Czechoslovak republic,[1]
played an important role in the creative development of young Vitezslava. She also benefitted from the musical offerings of her native Brno,
which in many respects measured up to those of the country's capital, Prague.
Kapralova's talent was recognized relatively early and nurtured by her musician parents. Her mother Vitezslava, (born Viktorie Uhlirova, 1890–1973),
was a qualified voice teacher who studied with Marie Kollarova in Brno and with
Kristina Morfova at the National Theater in Prague.
Kapralova's father, Vaclav Kapral (1889–1947), studied composition with Leos Janacek and piano performance with Marie Kuhlova and Klotilda Schaferova in Brno.
Kapral was an outstanding teacher who never stopped educating himself throughout his life; although his own private music school, which he founded in 1911 in Brno,
grew in reputation and continued to attract generations of aspiring pianists throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he still found it necessary to perfect his
pianistic skills with Alfred Cortot in Paris in 1924 and 1925.
He also perfected his skills at composition under Vitezslav Novak, who was to become in due time also the teacher of choice for his daughter.
Throughout the 1920s, Kapral devoted much of his time to piano perfomance and
together with his friend Ludvik Kundera promoted four-hands repertoire. In addition to his performing career, Kapral worked as a lecturer at Brno's Masaryk University
and,
beginning in 1936, also as a tenured teacher at the Brno Conservatory, where he taught composition.

Music was therefore a natural part of Kapralova's life since childhood. It was primarily her mother's influence, however, that led to Kapralova's lifelong passion
for art song.
Kapralova's contribution to the genre has been significant: her songs in general and the opuses 10, 12, and 14 in particular represent
one of the late climaxes of Czech Art Song.[2]
In vocal music Kapralova combined her passion for the singing voice with her love of poetry.
She had excellent judgment when it came to poetry:
she not only had a penchant for selecting high quality poems
to set to music but she also wrote good poetry herself -
her first song cycle from 1930 and the orchestral song Smutny vecer (Sad Evening) from 1936 are believed to be set to her own texts.

Both parents were supportive of Kapralova's interest in music but had rather practical plans for her: she was to take over her parents' private music school.
Kapralova had her own plans, however; her mind was set on composition and conducting, and it was this double major program that she chose for her studies at
the Brno Conservatory.
She was to become the very first female student to graduate from the demanding program in the history of this respectable institution.

At the Brno Conservatory, Kapralova studied composition with Czech composer Vilem Petrzelka and conducting with Vilem Steinman and Zdenek Chalabala; the latter
was one of the finest Brno conductors and dramaturgs.
Kapralova wrote a good number of compositions during her "Brno period": one of her earliest was a piano suite that she later orchestrated
under the title Suite en miniature, op. 1.
Other noteworthy compositions that followed include Two Pieces for Violin and Piano, op. 3, song cycles Dve pisne, op. 4 (Two Songs) and
Jiskry z popele, op. 5 (Sparks from Ashes) and the remarkable song
Leden (January) for higher voice and flute, two violins, violoncello and piano, set to words of Vitezslav Nezval, another great Czech poet.
The finest among her compositions from the Brno period are, however,
the virtuosic two-movement Sonata Appassionata, op. 6 and the Piano Concerto in D Minor, op. 7, her graduation work. Its premiere by the conservatory orchestra which was
conducted by Kapralova, with Ludvik Kundera as soloist, received highly favourable reviews not only
in the regional newspapers but also in major dailies.
Among them was the German Prager Tagblatt whose reviewer expressed his
disappointment over the conservatory's decision to present only the first movement of Kapralova's concerto which, according to him, attested
to an extraordinary talent: "Es is zu bedauern, das die Veranstalter
nur den ersten Satz des Werkes aufführen liessen, doch auch diese kleine Probe zeigt eine erstaunlich temperamentvolle musikalische Begabung."[3]

In the fall of 1935, Kapralova was accepted into the prestigious Master School of the Prague Conservatory, where she continued her double major studies,
this time with the best teachers she could find in her own country.
She studied composition with Dvorak's pupil, Vitezslav Novak, and conducting with Vaclav Talich, a chief conductor of Czech Philharmonic and Prague's National Theater.
The Master School and the musical life of the country's capital provided a stimulating environment for Kapralova, in which her natural talent,
coupled with her strong work ethic, continued to thrive.
By joining the Society for contemporary music Pritomnost (The Present) and as a regular participant of Silvestr Hippman’s musical "Tuesdays" of
Umelecka beseda (Artistic forum), she was exposed to contemporary music,
both Czech and international. The two societies later also became important platforms for premiering Kapralova's new works.

During her studies at the Prague Conservatory, Kapralova composed her most popular songs Navzdy, op. 12 (Forever)
and Sbohem a satecek, op. 14 (Waving Farewell);
the latter she later orchestrated in consultation with Bohuslav Martinu in Paris. Other creations of Kapralova's "Prague period" include her
splended String Quartet, op. 8 and her most popular work for piano, Dubnova preludia,
op. 13 (April Preludes), dedicated to Rudolf Firkusny who brought attention to its qualities by his masterly performance several years later in Paris.
But one composition in particular brought her wide public attention - Military Sinfonietta, op. 11 - Kapralova’s graduation work
which was premiered by the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of the composer
on November 26, 1937, at the Lucerna Palace in Prague. It was with the sinfonietta that Kapralova achieved not only wider recognition at home but also abroad
when it was performed at the opening night of the 16th ISCM Festival in London on June 17, 1938. The British premiere of the sinfonietta,
in which Kapralova conducted the excellent BBC Orchestra, was transmitted across the ocean to the United States where
it was broadcast by CBS. According to the reviewer of Time magazine, Kapralova not only fared well at the international competition
at the festival[4] but she also became the star of the opening concert,
and so "to composer Kapralova, who conducted her own lusty, sprawling composition, went the afternoon’s biggest hand."[5]
Among all the reviews mentioning her performance, Kapralova would probably have cherished that of her colleague,
Havergal Brian, who in his festival report for Musical Opinion wrote: "The first work played and broadcast at the recent festival, a Military Sinfonietta
by Miss Vitezslava Kapralova of Czechoslovakia,
proved an amazing piece of orchestral writing; it was also of logical and well balanced design."[6]
But it is unlikely that she ever read it.

Kapralova travelled to the ISCM festival in London from Paris where she had lived since October of the previous year.[7]
She arrived in Paris on a one-year French Government scholarship to advance her music education at the Ecole Normale de musique,
initially hoping to continue her double major studies:
conducting with Charles Munch and composition with Nadia Boulanger. However, her knowledge of French was not good enough to study with Boulanger;
so she decided to enrol just in the conducting class,
because with Munch she could communicate in German. She also accepted an offer of private consultations with Bohuslav Martinu who was by then established
in France and well respected both in Paris
and his native Czechoslovakia. Kapralova met Martinu in Prague; they became acquainted on April 8, 1937, during Martinu's brief visit to the capital,
where he arrived to discuss with Vaclav Talich
the details of the premiere of his new opera Julietta at the National Theater.

In Paris, Martinu became first Kapralova's mentor, later also her friend, and, in the end, her soulmate. From the very beginning, he was generous with his contacts
and time; and, besides hours of free consultations,
he also opened quite a few doors for her. Soon after Kapralova arrived in Paris, Martinu introduced her to a circle of composers who were members of Triton,
a Parisian society for contemporary music
whose concerts Kapralova diligently attended. He also entrusted her with the task of conducting his Concerto for harpsichord and small orchestra in Paris on June 2, 1938,
just two weeks before her well-received ISCM Festival appearance. In addition, he facilitated the publication of her
Variations sur le carillon de l’église St-Etienne-du-Mont, op. 16,
which he greatly admired, by La Sirene éditions musicales (later bought by Eschig).

In the fall of 1938, Martinu spent much time and effort to secure another stipend for Kapralova so that she could return to France. His anxiety over the
rapidly worsening political situation and
over his separation from Kapralova found its way into his Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani,
whose score Martinu finished on the very day of the Munich Agreement.[8]
During the same time, Kapralova continued to work, back home in Moravia, on her Partita for Strings and Piano, op. 20, in which Martinu, as he put it himself,
"interfered more than he would have liked but both
(he and Kapralova) looked at it as a learning exercise (for Kapralova)."[9] However, he interfered neither in her
Suita rustica, op. 19 (commissioned by Universal Edition London and composed in just three weeks in the fall of 1938), nor in her Concertino for violin, clarinet
and
orchestra, op. 21 (1939) whose last movement
and orchestration Kapralova later set aside and did not finish. (It received its extended life thanks to Milos Stedron and Leos Faltus, two Brno musicologists
who completed its orchestration in 2000.)

The Triton concerts and the thought-provoking discussions with Martinu were some of the stimuli of Kapralova's new environment that
accelerated her creative development.
During the two years she lived in Paris, Kapralova produced almost as much music as she had during the five years in Brno and her two years in Prague.
The highlights of her first "Parisian period" (October 1937-May 1938)
include Variations sur le carillon, op. 16 and her (unfinished) reed trio. Another work that Kapralova composed in Paris during this period,
the orchestral cantata Ilena, op. 15,
is particularly important in the context of her own oeuvre. Its musical ideas occupied Kapralova's mind as early as 1932.
When she finally began working with them, however, she found the music rooted
in the post-romantic idiom from which she had already moved. She felt ambivalent about the composition and finished it only because Martinu valued it.
She did not finish its orchestration, however
(the task was entrusted to composer Martin Kostas, as part of his graduate studies requirements at the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts,
so that Ilena could receive its world premiere on May 31, 2007, in Brno).

During her second Parisian period (January 1939–May 1940), Kapralova became even more productive. Soon after her return to Paris in January 1939, she composed
two chamber music works honoring the memory of Czech writer Karel Capek
whose passing on Christmas Day of 1938 was mourned by the nation: the Elegy for violin and piano, and the melodrama Karlu Capkovi (To Karel Capek).
On March 15, 1939, German armies marched into the streets of Prague.
Devastated by the occupation of her homeland, Kapralova sought solace in her music. The result was the aforementioned Concertino for violin, clarinet, and orchestra, op. 21
which reflects much of the composer's mental state at the worst period of
her life. She scribbled on the score Job 30, 26 a telling reference to the passage from the Book of Job: "Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light,
then came darkness".
The Concertino, with its bold ideas and modern musical language, was to be Kapralova’s last major work;
only two more high points were to follow: the song cycle Sung into the Distance, op. 22, and the Deux ritournelles pour violoncelle et piano, op. 25,
her last composition.

The German occupation of Czechoslovakia changed Kapralova's life literally overnight. As the return home was not an option,
Kapralova was now facing the arduous task of earning her own living;
she no longer received financial aid from home, (as financial transactions were subjected to new, strict rules), nor her stipend.
Throughout the spring of 1939, Kapralova was also trying to obtain a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School so that she could relocate to the United States
(in the company of Martinu). Nothing came of the plan, however, and at the end of summer 1939, Kapralova entirely depended on charitable assistance of her
friends and benefactors.
The most generous among the latter was Jewish-Czech entrepreneur Pavel Deutsch to whom she was introduced by generous Martinu;
she also received several financial contributions from Czech ex-President Edvard Benes
to whom she once dedicated her Military Sinfonietta. During this final year of her life, Kapralova spent much of her precious time on small commissions
in an effort to support herself - one of them was the lively Prélude de Noel, an orchestral miniature that
Kapralova composed for a Christmas program of the Paris PTT Radio.

Lacking regular income, Kapralova joined the household of her artist friends who found themselves in a similar position and decided to pool their resources to get
through hard times.
One of these friends was her future husband Jiri Mucha. She also joined the efforts of the Czech community in Paris that organized activities for and
around the newly formed Czechoslovak Army.
Soon she became heavily involved: from founding a choir and writing reviews for La Cause Tchécoslovaque to composing music for the radio, the stage,
and even the screen (made possible by a commission facilitated by Kapralova's friend, film actor Hugo Haas).
In the final months of her life, Kapralova also resumed her studies at the Ecole Normale (whether she was taking class with Boulanger remains inconclusive),
adding to her already busy schedule.
In April 1940, less than two months before her death, she married Jiri Mucha.[10] In early May, Kapralova exhibited first symptoms of
her terminal illness. Since Paris was threatened by German invasion,
she was evacuated by Mucha to Montpellier, near his military base in Agde, on May 20. By then Kapralova was already seriously ill;
and, following several weeks of suffering, she succumbed to her illness on June 16, 1940.[11]

In 1946, the foremost scholarly institution in Czechoslovakia, the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts, acknowledged Kapralova's distinct contribution to Czech Music
by awarding her a membership in memoriam.
She was one of only ten women members (and the only woman musician), out of more than 640 domestic members elected to the Academy
since its inception in 1890.[12]

***

In her short life, Kapralova composed close to fifty works in a variety of genres. Particularly well represented in Kapralova's oeuvre are her songs.
Together with the composer’s sophisticated works for the keyboard, they have remained the most vital part of the Kapralova repertoire. Kapralova's orchestral works
are also well represented in her catalog but lesser known and, with a few notable exceptions,
have yet to be discovered by performers. They include two orchestral songs, two piano concertos, a sinfonietta, an orchestral cantata, a concertino,
a ballet-suite for large orchestra,
and a couple of minor classics for chamber orchestra. Relatively the least represented in Kapralova's catalog is chamber music but the compositions she did
create in this genre are often remarkable,
be it her early string quartet or her last opus - the ritornel for cello and piano.

Although a few Kapralova compositions were published during her lifetime[13] and several more published and even recorded soon after
her death,[14]
it was only in the late 1990s that any concentrated efforts were made to publish and release Kapralova's music systematically. The founding of the Kapralova Society
in Toronto in 1998 has played a seminal role
in this revival of interest in Kapralova's music. That year Studio Matous released in Prague a first profile CD of the composer.[15]
A Supraphon recording of Kapralova's art songs followed in 2003,[16] a result of the dedicated efforts of the Society's member,
Timothy Cheek, Associate Professor of Voice
at the University of Michigan School of Music, and the financial partnership of the University of Michigan and Kapralova Society. In 2008, a third all-Kapralova
release, this time by Koch Records in New York,
added significantly to the Kapralova discography with piano and chamber music recordings.[17] This project too was initiated and
financially assisted by the Society.
The fourth profile CD of the composer, featuring Piano Concerto in D-Minor and released by Czech Radio with the assistance of the Society in 2011,
further narrowed a gap in Kapralova
recordings,[18] as did the Czech Radio recording of Concertino for violin, clarinet, and orchestra, released as part of the
fifth profile CD of Kapralova's orchestral works in 2016.[19]
The final gap in Kapralova's discography was closed in 2017 with Naxos' release of Kapralova's complete music for piano solo, another project assisted by
the Kapralova Society.[20]

The most important among the projects the Society initiated and assisted over the past two decades, however, has been the Kapralova Edition -
the joint effort of the Kapralova Society and Czech Radio, Amos Editio and
Baerenreiter Verlag - that made Kapralova's music available in print. To date, almost all of Kapralova compositions have been published, many in a first,
critical edition. While the Czech Radio and Baerenreiter have been
primarily interested in Kapralova's orchestral catalog,[21] Amos Editio focused on publishing the composer’s songs, works for piano,
and chamber music.[22]
Among the publisher’s greatest accomplishments to date has been the critical edition of Kapralova’s art songs, expertly edited by Timothy Cheek and only made possible
thanks to the substantial financial support
of the Kapralova Society.

Besides making Kapralova’s music available on record and in print, the Society has initiated and financially assisted some of the world premieres and other
important performances of the
composer’s music.[23]
Finally, the Society has been playing a key role in promoting and advancing knowledge about the composer by assisting
scholarly research,[24] publishing an online periodical,
the Kapralova Society Journal,
and maintaining a website (kapralova.org).

Notes:
This text is partially based on my article "The Centenary of Vitezslava Kapralova," first published in Kapralova Society Journal 13, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 1-5. It has been regularly updated since and contains previously unpublished information.

[1] Czechoslovakia became an independent republic on October 28, 1918. [2] Jindriska Bartova, "Kapralova in the Context of Czech Music." In The Kapralova Companion, ed. Karla Hartl and Erik Entwistle
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 13-25.[3] "Konzerte," a review by Walter Hasenclever printed in Prager Tagblatt, June 20, 1935, 6.[4] The success of Kapralova's music at this prestigious international event was all the more so remarkable when we realize that
participating composers also included Bartok, Britten, Copland, Hindemith, Messiaen, and Webern.[5] "International egg rolling." Time magazine, June 27, 1938. Available online http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,759885,00.html[6] Havergal Brian, "The Nature of Modern Music. Contemporary Music Festival," Musical Opinion (July 1938): 858.[7] Kapralova lived at the following addresses in Paris: 93, boulevard Saint-Michel (28 Oct-8 Nov 37); 1, rue de Medicis (8 Nov 37-28 June 38);
Hotel Pantheon, Place du Pantheon (11-22 Jan 39);
Hotel Beauvoir, 43, av. de l’Observatoire (now 43, avenue Georges Bernanos) (23 Jan-7 July 39); 40 bis, rue Violet (8-19 July 39); 57, av. Reille (Sept-Oct 39);
34, Quai de Passy (late Oct-2 Nov 39); 32, boulevard des Invalides (3 Nov-Dec 39); 12, Square Alboni (Dec 39-mid May 40).[8] In his letter dated February 25, 1958, Martinu admitted to his first biographer Milos Safranek:
"[T]he Double Concerto [has], of course, a very private character, but only I know about that and all other conjectures are only [smoke]screen."
Milos Safranek, Bohuslav Martinu: His Life and Works (London: Allan Wingate, 1962), 184.[9] Premysl Prazak, ed., Vitezslava Kapralova, studie a vzpominky (Praha: HMUB, 1949), 127.[10] Jiri Mucha, (1915-1991), Czech writer, son of the art-nouveau painter Alfons Mucha. His autobiography Podivne lasky
(Strange Loves), published in Prague in 1988, is centred on the years
Mucha spent in Paris before the war, his relationship with Kapralova and her love affair with Martinu. "The book is first and foremost a novel.
[Mucha] only had access to part of Kapralova's correspondence, relied heavily on
secondhand accounts, and made assumptions to fill in the blanks. While we can get some idea of Martinu and Kapralova from the story, we learn far more about
Mucha and his version of what transpired in Paris during those fateful years."
Robert Simon, Bohuslav Martinu: A Research and Information Guide (NY: Routledge, 2014.)[11] While the official cause of Kapralova's death is often cited as tuberculosis miliaris, the symptoms she manifested are entirely
inconsistent
with this diagnosis which has never been officially confirmed. The latest research into possible causes of Kapralova’s death suggests that she may have died of
typhoid fever, caused by S. typhi bacteria.
I am indebted to Dr. Philip Mackowiak, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland School of Medicine for making this educated guess as to the etiology of Kapralova’s
fatal illness,
which is based on Kapralova’s original medical record from Saint Eloi clinic in Montpellier.[12] Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia (Princeton University Press, 1998), 343.[13] Burlesque, op. 3/2 (1933), Groteskni (Grotesque) Passacaglia, op. 9/3 (1936), Jablko s klina
(Apple from the Lap), op. 10 (1938), Military Sinfonietta, op. 11 (1938), Dubnova preludia (April Preludes), op. 13 (1938), and Variations sur le
carillon de l'eglise St-Etienne-du-Mont, op. 16 (1938).[14]Waving Farewell, op. 14 (1947), Partita, op. 20 (1948), Forever, op. 12 (1949), and Potpolis, op. 17 (1976).
In 1945, Ultraphon recorded two of the four April Preludes (Allegro ma non troppo and Andante Semplice); in 1957, Gramofonove zavody recorded (and released a
year later) the Military Sinfonietta; and in 1975, Supraphon released April Preludes, Waving Farewell, Suita rustica, and Partita.[15] The disc features Kapralova's String Quartet, op. 8, Military Sinfonietta, op. 11, April Preludes, op. 13,
Waving Farewell, op. 14 (orchestral version), Partita, op. 20, and Ritornel for Violoncello and Piano, op. 25.[16] The disc features the following song cycles: Dve pisne (Two Songs), op. 4, Jiskry z popele (Sparks from Ashes), op. 5,
Jablko s klina (Apple from the Lap), op. 10, Navzdy (Forever), op. 12, Sbohem a satecek (Waving Farewell), op. 14, Vteriny (Seconds),
op. 18, Zpivano do dalky (Sung into the distance), op. 22, and several other songs, including the composer's last song Dopis (Letter), of 1940,
and Leden (January) of 1933, for soprano/tenor, flute, two violins, violoncello, and piano. The latter song is a remarkable composition that was virtually unknown
until its 2003 premiere by the faculty members of the University of Michigan School of Music.[17] The disc features Kapralova's piano works Five Piano Pieces, Sonata Appassionata, op. 6, April Preludes, op. 13,
Variations sur le carillon the l'eglise Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, op. 16,
Little Song, and Kapralova's three piano and violin pieces: Legend and Burlesque, op. 3, and Elegy (1939). Seven of the eight compositions on
the disc were world premiere recordings at the time.[18] Besides the first CD recording of Kapralova's piano concerto, the disc also features a first recording of complete
Three Piano Pieces, op. 9.[19] This double-bill CD recording features live performances of Piano Concerto in D Minor, op. 7; Military Sinfonietta,
op. 11; Partita for Piano and Strings, op. 20; Suita rustica, op. 19 (premiere CD recording); and Concertino for violin, xlarinet, and orchestra, op. 21
(world premiere recording).[20] The Grand Piano (Naxos) CD features world premiere recordings of Dance for Piano (from op. 23), Two Bouquets of Flowers,
Ostinato Fox, and Festive Fanfare.[21] Czech Radio has so far published Kapralova's Prelude de Noel, Partita, Military Sinfonietta,
String Quartet, melodrama To Karel Capek,
Piano Concerto in D Minor, the orchestral song Sad Evening,Suita rustica and Suite en miniature.
Editio Baerenreiter has so far published Concertino for violin, Clarinet and Orchestra, and Deux ritournelles pour violoncelle et piano.[22] Since 2003, Amos Editio has published the following scores (all initiated and fully financed by the Society):
the first (nearly) complete (critical) edition of Kapralova's art songs for voice and piano;
the first edition of her song Leden (January) for soprano/tenor, flute, two violins, violoncello, and piano;
the first (critical) edition of Sonata appassionata, op. 6; the first complete (critical) edition of the composer's works for violin and piano;
the first edition of Three Pieces for Piano, op. 9;
the first (critical) edition of Five Piano Pieces; the first (critical) edition of the song Sad evening (a version for voice and piano); and
the first edition of Tales of a Small Flute
(flute/recorder and piano).[23] An example is the 2007 world premiere of Kapralova's cantata Ilena, op. 15, for soli, mixed chorus, orchestra, and reciter,
a project of the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts
Faculty of Music in Brno, initiated and financially assisted by the Society.[24] The most important body of research assisted by the Society to date has been The Kapralova Companion,
the first English language study on the composer,
published in 2011 by Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield). The book was shortlisted for the 2011 F.X. Salda Foundation Award in the category of important
contributions to art history and criticism.
The Society's multi-volume anthology of Kapralova's correspondence is another essential contribution to original Kapralova research.
Three of its volumes (in Czech language), published between 2015 and 2017, have been made available to the public through
select specialized libraries.